CBS did not specify the length of the leave of absence for its two staff members, nor whether they would continue to be paid. In general, television correspondents do not lose salary unless they are suspended.

Beyond Ms. Logan, who has been a rising star at CBS News, the review could have implications for the leadership of Jeffrey Fager, the chairman of CBS News, who is also the executive producer of “60 Minutes.” Mr. Fager sent an email to the staff on Tuesday, saying: “As executive producer, I am responsible for what gets on the air. I pride myself in catching almost everything, but this deception got through and it shouldn’t have.”

He added: “We are making adjustments at ’60 Minutes’ to reduce the chances of it happening again.”

No word on whether Lara Logan’s heaving breasts will also be placed on leave or if they’ll be allowed to continue working.

@Horatio – and if that is true how is that not wildly inappropriate? A look at her Wikipedia bio shows she did much of her work imbedded with US forces in Afghanistan and Iraq and was sexually assaulted in Tahir Square reporting on the uprising. Seems like a legit reporter who has paid her dues, current screw up not withstanding.

I didn’t say it wasn’t appropriate, just what the implication was that I took from it.

I will say that if she was sexually assaulted while covering a story, (and that does appear to be the case) then that line is pretty far into bad taste territory and not one I would have gone with, even on a dick joke TV blog.

OK, I get the “running gag” thing but she was sexually assaulted not all that long ago while reporting a story. I’m the last one to tell anyone what they can and can’t write but you really might want to put some thought into whether or not that gag has run its course. In this context I think it’s in pretty poor taste and I have the morals of an alley cat.

@Agent M – Looks like (again, just going off the Wiki page) she infiltrated the Northern Alliance shortly after 9/11 and interviewed their leader, which got her the break stateside. But whatever, I’m not her agent and have no stake in her career, just thought the line was in poor taste.

@Arch Duke – this line of reasoning would have more weight if WG didn’t frequently tee off on people it considers to be insufficiently PC. Also, unlike the PC police I’m not asking for the article to be taken down, or the author to be fired, or a donation to raise awareness of heaving breasts to be made. Rather I am just, as a customer, voicing my opinion of the product.

@Digital – Where is the outrage? I made a comment, I didn’t Call Cajun Boy a misogynist or a sexist or call for his ouster. I simply said I thought a line was in bad taste. That prompted a generally civil discussion and ended up with Brasky starting a Penthouse Forum letter. If this be outrage it is weak outrage indeed.

CBS doesn’t understand or doesn’t care that Lara Logan is NOT an unbiased journalist. If you listened to her speech at the Better Government Association, or her criticism of Michael Hastings (a fellow journalist) for ‘betraying’ General McChrystal, when he was simply doing his job as a journalist – you get a real sense of what her political views are. When deciding to cover this Benghazi story, and in the subsequent investigation, she didn’t follow the facts – she made up her mind early, then ignored any facts that suggested she might be wrong. She made up her mind first, then tailored the story around the conclusion she’d already reached. Then surprise, when the story was put under mild scrutiny, it turned out to be completely wrong. So when you have someone that arrives at conclusions then tries to mold the facts to support the conclusion they’ve already reached, that’s propaganda, not journalism. When your audience turns to you for journalism and you give them obvious propaganda – it tends to piss them off (with one obvious exception). So CBS should get used to this, because if they continue to chase the Fox News audience with pieces like this, where people just make crap up to make their point – this will happen more often. If Lara Logan stays on the show – it will definitely happen again. She should go to Fox already. Their views and approach to ‘journalism’ are more in line with hers. It’d be a much better fit.

@Otto Man: They’re chasing that Fox News audience. They hired a couple Fox execs and Lara Logan. That story was supposed to be red meat for that audience. In addition, they wanted to sell some books. That guy has a book deal with the Viacom subsidiary Threshold books. Who cares if he made it up? Oh yeah, a news organization is supposed to care about that. But CBS knew what they getting, and what they were doing by airing that story. If it damages their reputation – they deserve it.

In a purely nonpartisan way, I’d like to point out that CBS News has had a shitty reputation since they kicked Cronkite out in favor of Dan Rather (circa ’82-ish?).

All this recent episode shows is that they tried to zig right and got caught, instead of the 1985-2005 zigging left that began the ruination of a formerly great news brand, culminating with Rather’s lame fake-document attempt at Bush Jr. and the CBS Evening News with Katie Fucking Couric. Ineptitude doesn’t necessarily preclude bias, but to be fair, CBS News is just stupid now.

Cronkite’s famous “Journalists are liberals because we see more” is at least honest. Rather’s fake documents and the like were just desperate. Desperate as a hound dog looking for a drink in the desert, or whatever that hack would make up.

Yeah, they’re chasing the Fox News audience, but this guy’s story was so laughably thin that not even Fox News was willing to run it. Amazing.

And yeah, that BGA speech was just amazing. I love how she keeps talking about how “we” were attacked and “we” need to strike back. That’s amazing language from an alleged journalist, but particularly so from one who isn’t even an American.

80 comments later and I finally find the comment thread that’s relevant to what’s actually happening in the story. Bravo guys and gals.

And yes, its strange to see her become more and more conservative after everything she’s seen and dealt with… but that may be because of the people she’s been dating/cheating with. All of which is a shame because I thought she came off really well on The Daily Show a couple years ago. Now she’s like the star of a bad ABC drama.

I just watched that speech in its entirety. While I was impressed with her ability to draw Glenn Beck-like circles to connect anything she deems connected, evidence be damned, my main take away was that whenever someone says “I read everything every day” they’re lying.

She certainly struck me as less an unbiased journalist looking for answers and more as a cheerleader for the neo-cons ooking for any way to boost their arguments.l

I’m surprised it took me scrolling through 3/4 of the comments before Otto Douche was linking this fiasco to Fox News. 60 Minutes going after the “Fox News audience” is bull shit and simply not supported by the stories they run. I watch Fox News and I simply have no interest in 60 Minutes. I also watch CNN, MSNBC on occasion, and HLN.

Once again I have to read the incessant liberal ravings of Otto Douche. It’s getting so tired man, just give it up.

As a quick addendum to my previous post: I have no sympathy for CBS in this debacle. When they hired executives from Fox News and Lara Logan they had to have known what they were getting. It’s like knowingly dating someone with a serious heroin addiction. You can’t be surprised when you come home and find out they’ve sold all your belongings to feed their habit.

One last thing and then I’ll get off my soapbox for the day and get back to work (like I should’ve done an hour ago). My biggest concern about the contemporary US is our increasing inability to reason deductively or even think at all. Lara Logan, her producers, the CBS execs, Fox News, increasingly live in a world where 1 + 1 = 3. A society can’t recognize, let alone solve their problems if they lack the ability to reason, think or analyze.

I read this story about an obese woman that was walking down a city street. She walked over a grate, which couldn’t support her enormous weight. The grate collapsed and she fell through, but because she was so fat – she got wedged in the opening. She was interviewed afterward and said “Thank goodness I’m so big, or I would’ve fallen through”. That was her takeaway from the experience – not “Wow I’m so fat, I collapsed a grate in the sidewalk, I should lose some weight so that doesn’t happen again…not to mention the other problems this excess weight will cause…” That type of thinking (or lack of thinking) seems to be increasingly common throughout our society. That concerns me.

Ok rant over. I’m going to try and get some work done. Have a good day everybody.

Who would have thought that Lara Logan, a CBS employee, could run a shit story on CBS and Fox News could still be blamed for it. How fucking stupid are you people? This is shitting in your hand and throwing it at bystanders crazy.